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The House at Pooh Corner
The House at Pooh Corner is a 1928 children's book of ten chapters by A.A. Milne. It is a sequel to the 1926 book Winnie-the-Pooh. All of the characters from the previous book (Winnie-the-Pooh, Christopher Robin, Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit, Owl, Kanga and Roo) return in The House at Pooh Corner and a new character, Tigger, is introduced. The book ends with Christopher Robin trying to explain to Pooh that he is growing up and will not be able to play with him very much anymore, a section that many parents find very poignant. Summary The book begins with a "Contradiction". Milne explains that it is not an "Introduction", it is the opposite of an "Introduction" because "Christopher Robina and his friends, who have already been introduced to you, are now going to say Good bye", indicating that it will be Milne's final book about Winnie-the-Pooh. The story in the first chapter is the one which gives the book its name. Pooh tells Piglet that Eeyore the donkey does not have a house. They decide to build one in the field where the donkey lives, in a corner out of the wind which Pooh names "Pooh Corner". They find a pile of sticks which they move over to "Pooh Corner" and shape into a house, not realizing that the pile of sticks is really a house that Eeyore has built for himself. In the second chapter Pooh is woken up in the middle of the night by a growling sound. He finds an animal that he has never seen before, named Tigger, at the door. When Pooh finds out that Christopher Robin knows about Tigger he allows him to stay for the night. In the morning Pooh offers Tigger some breakfast but Tigger finds that he does not like Pooh's honey. He also learns that he does not like Piglet's acorns or Eeyore's thistles but he does like the extract of malt that Kanga gives to Roo as strengthening medicine. As a result, Tigger decides to stay at Kanga and Roo's house forever. In the third chapter the characters go looking for one of Rabbit's missing friends, a beetle named Small. As in the previous book, Piglet worries about meeting a Heffalump. A boastful Tigger shows off to Roo by climbing a tall tree in the fourth chapter, only to find out that he does not know how to get down. In the fifth chapter the characters learn that the reason they do not see Christopher Robin in the mornings anymore is because he goes to school. Winnie-the-Pooh invents the game of Pooh Sticks in the sixth chapter. Players drop sticks from one side of the bridge and then rush to the other side to see whose stick comes out from under the bridge first. Eeyore is saved from the river after Tigger bounces him in by accident. In the seventh chapter Rabbit decides that something has to be done to make Tigger less bouncy. He decides that he, Pooh and Piglet should take Tigger on "a long explore" to a place that he has never been to before and then lose him. When they find him the next morning he will be a changed Tigger, humbler, sadder and sorrier. However, Tigger arrives home before the other three characters, telling Roo, "It's a funny thing about Tiggers, how Tiggers never get lost." Rabbit, Pooh and Piglet get hopelessly lost. Rabbit gets separated from the other two and Pooh eventually leads Piglet home, saying that he can hear twelve jars of honey calling from his house. The following day an unchanged Tigger rescues a grateful Rabbit. The eighth chapter is called "In Which Piglet Does A Very Grand Thing". On a very windy day, Pooh and Piglet go to visit Owl. During the storm Owl's house falls out of the tree and gets turned over. Piglet, the only one who is small enough to get through, is lowered on a string so that he can climb out of the letter box on the front door and go to get help. All of the characters look for a new home for Owl in the ninth chapter. Eeyore finds what everyone agrees is the perfect house for Owl, most of them not being aware that it is Piglet's house. Piglet allows Owl to take his house and moves in with Pooh. The final chapter begins by saying that somehow all the animals knew that Christopher Robin would be going away. It might be supposed that Christopher Robin is leaving to go to boarding school but this is not explicitly stated in the book. Eeyore writes a poem for Christopher Robbin which all of the animals sign and present to him. Christopher Robin and Pooh slip away and go to "an enchanted place" overlooking the forest. Christopher Robin tells Pooh that he will have to spend more time at school from now on and will have less time to do as he likes. The boy is trying to explain that he is growing up and will not be playing with his toys anymore. He tells Pooh to come to the same spot overlooking the forest and think about him. The book ends with the poignant lines "But wherever they go and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing." See also *''When We Were Very Young'' *''Now We Are Six'' External links *''The House at Pooh Corner'' on Winniepedia, the Winnie-the-Pooh wiki. *[[wikiquote:A. A. Milne#The House at Pooh Corner (1928)|Quotations from The House at Pooh Corner on Wikiquote.]] *Winnie-the-Pooh films on Moviepedia Category:Childrens Books Category:Classic Category:Famous Category:Animals